Incredible. It has to be about Obama! There were almost no signs bearing the name Obama, and I hear no talk or chants about Obama.

Smith collected a lot of other signs too, and she looked for counter-protest signs. She says she's collected signs at "many tea party events, but we don't at this moment have posters from Madison from the pro-Walker people." [ADDED: Perhaps it's because she's looking in the stacks of signs that had been taped to the walls of the Capitol. Only anti-Walkerites did that. Pro-Walker people showed up, but they took their trash out when they left.]

Here's a second link from the same paper (the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) asking "Where are all the great Republican artists?"

The organizers of "SolidARTity," an exhibit that presents a breadth of creative expression that's emerged in Madison in recent days, also wanted to include political art from the right, but couldn't find any to present.

The Project Lodge, which organized the show, put out a call to artists and got no submissions from artists aligned with Gov. Scott Walker or the Republicans. In fairness, SolidARTity was more than an art show, it's affiliated with a movement of artists that mobilized to protest the budget-repair bill, so perhaps right leaning aritsts didn't want to participate with this group.

Well, at least the columnist — Mary Louise Schumacher — realized how stupid her question was, but it didn't stop her from writing it up as a column. Why would any serious artist — of any political party — involve himself in projects with grade-school-group-project names like SolidARTity and The Project Lodge? I've done some art in my time, and my inclination would be to run like hell from something called The Project Lodge. And as for "SolidARTity" — whoever came up with that not only lacks a decent resistance to cutesiness, he/she also has no ear for language. I mean — get a clue! — you just put the "titty" in "solidarity."

Schumacher continues:

In 2008, when I wrote about the nationwide movement of artists who were creating work in support of Barack Obama's campaign for president, I did my best to track down artists who were engaged on the right. This, too, was pretty nonexistent.

Because, you see, if there were Republican artists, they'd be doing art about Republican politics! Here's another clue: Mixing politics and art makes bad art. And Republican artists are less likely to fall into the pit of badness that is political art, because Republicans, generally, want less government. Democrats are the ones who want government getting into all sorts of places where it doesn't belong, so naturally it gets into their art too.

Ideology certainly tends to corrupt art. Shostakovich would make an interesting case study. His entire career was under the Soviet regime who, with its "socialist realist" doctrine, wanted to dominate all artwork. According to some, Shostakovich was a dissident, writing music that had a subtext repudiating its surface. But things were not that simple. I believe that he was simply a composer who did the best he could under the constraints. If he had to write a paean to socialism, he at least tried to make it musically worthwhile. But most of his output was within abstract musical forms like the string quartet, prelude and fugue. His symphonies, sometimes required to commemorate socialism, are really just symphonies.

So I am agreeing with Althouse that great art is inherently on the right because the idea of ideology in art is a fundamentally left wing one: see Destrutt de Tracy. If you want to do the best job you can, you have to push ideology aside and just work with the aesthetic materials...

I keep saying “The Left can’t be parodied” and “Satire and Irony are dead.” I make the joke about preserving Meade’s T-shirt, previously, and here they are….You CANNOT parody the Left, no matter how outrageous you make your statement, within 24 hours, some Progressive will echo it, and mean it.

It's only "right wing" in the American sense. But "right" and "left," as political ideas, were invented in the French Revolution. The ideas did not exist in 1776. They often get in the way, precisely because so many people think American conservatives are supporters of the old regime.

Now let's repeat the non-conformists' oath: I promise to be different! (audience repeats) I promise to be unique! (audience repeats) I promise not to repeat things other people say! (audience repeats, laughs) Good!

Did the Smithsonian collect any Giant Puppet Heads from the Madison protest to bring to Washington? It's almost an iron clad rule (worked out no doubt in collective bargaining) that any progressive protest event has to have Giant Puppet Heads of their political enemies as part of the show.

Gee, I've both asked that and asked for help to get it out there, but now I wish everyone would just admit they don't give a damn and get it over with. It's probably the most embarrassing thing about the Right an artist could discover:

This is just another clumsy attempt to glamorize the left's defeat. I've noticed numerous efforts in the media the past several days to characterize the events in Madison as some kind of heroic, working class uprising. Nice try, but I trust few are going to buy that.

And another thing…

"We're trying to document, in general, occasions when American citizens interact with their government and petition the government or ask for change, and this is an occasion of that," Smith said.

…ask for change? I believe they were insisting on preserving the status quo, weren't they?

The left often thinks of their politics as a form of creative expression and therefore often thinks of their creative expression as a form of politics. I recall how many times I heard the tiresome phrase "the personal is the political" during my educational experiences. The right, and libertarians, and people who don't care for politics, tend to view politics as something akin to going to the dentist. A necessary form of maintenance, but not something to be "celebrated" and not something that should permeate other areas of one's life and one's interests.

To me, great art is inherently ambiguous; it confounds easy summary and characterization and belongs, in one way or another, to eternity. Political art is utilitarian, like a pair of dime-store socks and belongs, like our bodies, to the dust. One is poetry, one is prose.

"Gee, I've both asked that and asked for help to get it out there, but now I wish everyone would just admit they don't give a damn and get it over with."

I'm sorry but that doesn't sound very right wing. If you are a great right-wing artist, you should sell your art or suffer... or get a day job. Asking for "help" is left-wing. You think righties should help you because you are a righty? It doesn't work that way! Stop begging.

But you know what? Most contemporary artists are left wing. And there is much great art that is political.

Let's start with the Pharaohs. Or the Ishtar Gate of Babylon.

Now jump forward to Daumier. Kollwitz. Picasso's Guernica.

It's not the dominate strain in visual arts, but it's there.

On personal note, I know artists who are leftwing but not political, some who are political but don't do political art, some who put politics into their art but you can't figure out the point, and a very few who make politics their subject in an obvious way. The vast majority of artists I know fall into the first two categories.

I still have the protests signs and wanted posters that teachers (I'm on a Board of Education) used at my house, placed on utility poles around town and stuck to windows while they disrupted a student awards presentation. They were not as creative and colorful as the ones in Wisconsin.

The UW-Milwaukee Peck School for the Arts building is festooned with all sorts of signs in its windows about the subject at hand. They include such noteworthy slogans as "WE ARE THE CRISIS" and "GENERAL STRIKE: BE READY". There was no real artwork in the creation of any of these signs.

Their sense of self importance appears to be the direct inverse of the actual importance.

Leftists are into propaganda and mental manipulation of the masses by pictures and posters that simplify concept ideas and that appeal to the emotions in order to manipulate the 'masses'.

Conservatives are into explaining and clarifying concept ideas and educating the masses through appealing to the intellect. Those concepts are not as easily put into bad propaganda posters and empty slogans like: "Hey Hey...Hey Ho..insert name....has to go"

Surely the glorification of secular princes and the princes of the church, which constituted almost all of the art produced through the 18th century and even up to the mid-19th century, was, by today's standards right wing art.

The local NPR station in the Woodstock area is a big source of airtime when you release a new CD or when you've got a big local gig you want to publicize.

I gave up on even bothering with the station a long time ago, so I don't know who's there now.

But, in the bad old days, every show was produced and hosted by a far leftist from Woodstock. How did you get airtime and publicity? By supporting the leftist causes and playing at the fund raisers for the host's pet issues.

40 years ago, I was a leftist. I didn't know it at the time, but my leftism was careerism. And, it worked. The more extreme I became in my leftist views, the more rallies I played, the more successful I became.

This explains why leftist artists tend to become more strident and extreme over time. There is a career payoff.

As the Outrageous Right-wing Attacks Escalate, We Need the Strongest Independent Media Possible

The outrageous power grab in Wisconsin at the expense of teachers, fireman, and of thousands of workers who provide essential services, is but the first round in a long fight we have on our hands. We are once again reminded that Koch Brothers-funded-elected ideologues will lie, cheat, and do virtually anything to crush people's rights on behalf of greed and the arrogance of billionaires.

So we have to fight back with anger, but with smarts and determination for the long haul. And we have to make a commitment.

Anger and fight..... hope people understand there is war going on and Wisc is but one battle.

The kind of shit you're mouthing shows the limits of your understanding of art. I was tripping yesterday, on the Tom Wolfe phrase "mau-mauing". That's what you're doing - but on a different subject.

And you know about as much about art as that guy the phrase was used for knew about politics.

I hear it in other's phrases like "music is subjective" and all the rest. It's just bullshit they pick up and repeat without thinking. If it was true, then no on e would be actually "good." It would all be,..whatever.

But it ain't - it most certainly ain't.

One bad review, Ann. Prove me wrong - or that you're not out of your depth here.

So, yes, please send a "curator" across the country to collect some lefty signs. Do not walk across the Mall and gather some from the tea party protests held in your own back yard. Because those people, those tea people, were interacting with their government and petitioning for change too, weren't they?

From the first paragraph, it sounds like the White House has sent out orders to grab up anything that can be used in next year's campaign.

I'll just bet. With inflation growing, Barry's lies about unemployment and oil production getting so transparent his nose will soon be bigger than his ears, and his "Present" foreign policy, Rasmussen has The Zero's approval index at -20.

Now let's repeat the non-conformists' oath: I promise to be different! (audience repeats) I promise to be unique! (audience repeats) I promise not to repeat things other people say! (audience repeats, laughs) Good!

ShoutingThomas wrote: Sorry, I don't agree with that one, Althouse. The pressure to conform to far leftist views in the music biz is overwhelming.

I don't disagree, and I'm not sure you disagree with each other. There's enormous to conform, and at the same time it's very easy for the thoughtless to do so.

I can't think of any contemporary artists doing political work that isn't boilerplate crap of some kind or another, but I'm not convinced that politics and art can never mix. There are too many exceptions (like the three uncontroversial ones I listed above).

I think artists are mainly left wing because they are the heirs of the tradition of the Romantics. When art stopped being a way to memorialize the kingly class and became an expression of an artist's feelings, the modern art movement as counterculture began.

"History, Bourcier said, is unfolding right before our eyes." And he will make sure to tell it his way.

I still have a Ross Perot yard sign. It's the only sign I ever had put in my yard. It's made of plastic. And, has two metal rods that held it in place. I didn't throw it out. If it had been made of paper, I would have tossed it.

First, there are countless famous artists whose work tends to be labeled -- in its vision and tone -- conservative. I'm not sure why we would call Faulkner, Eliot, O'Connor, Roth, Bishop, Bellow, and Wolfe anything but conservative. And that's just American literature of the 20th century.

That label may be weak, but it definitely sticks.

Second, one might note the irony of how in many graduate humanities programs, canonical artists and artworks are represented by and large as rightwing -- as participating in discourses that ultimately reaffirm the status quo.

Third - and here I have a problem with Ann's final formulation -- since when does a focus on "the individual" make one right-wing?

The American right-wing, of course, lionizes the rights of the individual. But then again, so does the left-wing (see the typical lefty positions on culture, sexuality, religion, the police, drugs, etc.).

And while the left promotes social responsibility, the right has rooted itself group-first ideas of cultural conservative -- a conservatism that promotes the "democracy of the dead" that is tradition, heritage, common sense, common law, social ties, and so on.

(One can see, in this sense, why many novelists are viewed as righties in the academy: so many of their works depend on acknowledging the power of the past and present culture to define who we are -- even as we fight against it.)

Nonetheless, Ann's "right=individualism" equation only works for a fairly narrow view of the American political scene -- and for an equally limited view of art.

It puts her view of the art/politics squarely in line with the students at the Peck School. And that is just wrong.

To make that claim is to ignore the historical relationship of state, church and patron support of most of the great artist in the West. True they stood out because of their skill, and vision, which was often in resistance to previous works and trends,and this is an indication of their strong personalities,more than an ideological slant. Sometimes the works illustrated political ideas, as found in the expressionist movement, or in Bauhaus School. And just as Picasso, who gave us Guernica, as well as his etchings of the artist pissing, these artist explored their own inner forces, but I am not sure I would call this right wing, or left wing. And Crack's request for help does not make him a begger any more than it made all the great artist who worked for the church a begger; instead it is a realistic understanding that todays market place controlled by a few corporations and very wealthy patrons control much of the market that over-looks the art word.

And Crack's request for help does not make him a begger any more than it made all the great artist who worked for the church a begger; instead it is a realistic understanding that todays market place controlled by a few corporations and very wealthy patrons control much of the market that over-looks the art word.

Jesus Christ, do you always have to be completely, dead wrong?

It must be that foolish classical look to your avatar that makes you reflexively idiotic.

Today's artistic market place, for the first time in history, offers the artist a platform for his work that nobody can take away from him.

Have you ever heard of YouTube?

Has anybody told you about the internet? You know, that thing Al Gore invented?

I know you think you're a smart guy. But, you are just mouthing the current idiotic sanctimonies. Go take a look around at the world and get your head out of your ass.

Social responsibility is a lovely idea, but it means something completely different as a function of politics as opposed to a function of agency.

If you want a short, depressing, course in how the left views individual autonomy when actually in power look up "death of liberaltarianism."

I'm quibbling about politics here. I actually tend to agree with you on the art. But note that you're presenting a historical view. Almost all your right-wing writers and poets are dead. They are the equivalent of the Napoleon's great propagandist Jean Antoine Gros.

But why couldn't Project Lodge or SolidArtity produce some kind of great anti-Walker art? The answer isn't because of politics. The answer is that a poster-creator like Toulouse-Lautrec or Daumier is really hard to come by.

Even a graphically-skilled borrower of propaganda tropes like Shepherd Fairey is rare.

Didn't work for me, because in every social and biz setting I've been in for the past four decades, homosexuals have been open and vocal about their living and spousal arrangements.

The corporations I've worked for have all included gay significant others in their insurance, health and social activities.

The word "marriage" seems to be the issue here.

I'm not a crusader for or against anything, including gay marriage. It seems like a silly idea to me (in fact it seems to contradict language itself), but if the state decides to sanction it, I'll go about my life without noticing much.

Let artists find some rich person to provide for them without using our tax dollars. They can get a job teaching art somewhere. I'm sure if they're in the same league as da Vinci or Michelangelo they'll have no problems.

There's a difference between someone voluntarily supporting an artist and money forcefully taken from people to support artiists.

The Dems want to create a dependency relationship with the artistic community.Back in May of 20110, Nancy Pelosi spoke to musicians and the artistically inclined in Washington DC. Instead of telling those in attendance they should get a job, she brought quite a different message: they needn’t bother working, because the taxpayers of the United States would cover their health care. Perhaps channeling her San Francisco district, Pelosi explained that without a job they would be free to focus on their talents, passions and aspirations because they wouldn’t be “job locked."

Ann has several great zingers here, and I'm grateful for them. The distilled essence of their insight is completely true: people on the left only think of "art" in terms of some kind of school project. They don't have talent, and talent is not the starting-place for their thinking about art. It's just "expression"-- and *cutesiness*! Naturally no sober-minded person (left or right) is going to get mixed up in this grade-school glitter glue & posterboard confectionaryism. If the Smithsonian wants to commemorate this home-grown propaganda, they are operating out of pure (leftie) politics.

At the same time: why take shots at Crack's bow? Any artist is perfectly reasonable to lament the problems he/she has finding the audience that should be waiting for them. Patrons (including studio honchos in music, film,etc) with left-leaning politics happily dole out patronage to mediocrities (or outright imposters) who simply mouth political pieties in their so-called "art".

Now, it's true there are fringes related to American Conservatism (namely the Christian Evangelical right) that have their imprimaturs for getting out a "message". But that message, as even many intended audience-members understand, is simply propaganda (or proselytizing) with no inherent artistic value.

I suppose if Handel were alive today and looking at Christian rock radio, he might be wondering: why the hell won't these people give me a chance to get *my* stuff out there? Because his stuff is both so much better as Art-- AND it "gets the message out" so much better too.

It's a reasonable gripe. And griping, for artists, is not necessarily an unproductive emotion.

You live in a different world than I do, then. Of course, since you're in the arts -- and California, I think? -- I would expect more open acceptance of homosexuality.

Here in blue-collar Michigan, what I see might best be described as "grudging acceptance". People on the left say the right words about gay rights, because gay rights is seen as a Democrat issue; but when they get in private, they'll tell me what they really think. My guess is that because I'm a conservative (by Michigan standards), they think I'll agree with them.

And there are certainly conservatives here who are vocally against gay rights. (There are also plenty like me who are supportive; but like you, it's not our major issue.)

So the end result is that except in liberal enclaves like Ann Arbor, a lot of homosexuals here aren't comfortable discussing their relationships in social or business settings where heterosexuals are doing the same. Heck, even in supposedly tolerant Ann Arbor, you'll see conversations momentarily skip a beat the first time a guy says "my boyfriend".

And the people of this state -- considered strongly blue at the time -- voted in an anti-gay-marriage law that was so far over the line, I couldn't even consider voting for it. More people voted for that law than for John Kerry (and Kerry handily took the state), so the opposition was broad-based here. So I understand why homosexuals might still feel uncomfortable, for almost exactly the reasons you describe.

I agree that the word "marriage" is the big sticking point in a lot of places, probably in your circles. But in some places, the issue is still larger than just that word.

I would argue that the market for art is like any other. Artists are liberal because their customers are generally liberal. Artists are therefore, of necessity, a bit edgier than their clients. See the society pages for Julian Schnabel and the rich clients with whom he both associates and counts himself a member. It was ever so. The problem today is that most artists are not talented enough to be able to produce for a conservative buyer who might be more inclined to classical or more realistic styles. Why labor over developing talent when the imaginative "piss Christ" can earn fame and a few bucks?

As several comments have indicated, this whole left/right thing, born of the French Revolution, is convoluted and ambiguous.

The Romantic generation(s) were caught up in politics, the glorification of change, counter-revolution, uncertainty. Somebody like Shelley or Byron is absolutely on some kind of "Left"-- in their time. But what does it have to do with a Left recognizable to the Madison protesters? The ideological contents are so different-- and there's such a greater emphasis on values that would be pegged "conservative" today.

Or when someone like David, Ingres or Gros commemorates Napoleon, a revolutionary general and upstart monarchist-- is that the Revolutionary Left or Right?

As Allan Bloom points out, artists flocked to Nietzsche's banner long before the Parisians tried to rechristen Nietzsche as a thinker for the Left. Yeats, Pound, Eliot-- that's no love affair with the bourgeois liberal.

That's why Shakespeare is not "political art". Great art can reflect its time, but it cannot be solely of its time. Politics, as I wrote earlier, is of the world and thus condemned to dust. When the dust of Shakespeare's (or Milton's, or Poussin's, or Manet's, or Picasso's, or T.S. Eliot's) politics settled, there was still great art left behind. When the political relevancy of something like Richard Serra's embarrassing turn at political art decays (and it's already half-way through the process), there will be nothing left.

@RichardS: I'd agree that politics, as a great subject-matter and a perennial human theme, is an obvious candidate as a theme for important art.

But what's 'political' in "Macbeth" is surely different than what's 'political' about a grapic tee.

People can argue about how to divide that up exactly: but there's a difference.

Even the difference btw., say, a portrait by Titian, or Reynolds, or Ingres, of some Important Person vs. the more famous graphics of The Zero. The tradition of painting and idolizing aristocrats includes the tradition of portraying Beauty (even if beauty wasn't a discernible attribute of the sitters).

Whether you find Obama personally handsome or not, all that blue& red crap is really about an idea, a subjective tremor fabricated from recognized Pop tropes meant to give viewers a tingle up their legs by making Obama look "rock and roll" and Of The People, in that 60s way.

If someone wants to defend that, go ahead. But I don't think it's about an idea of "Beauty"-- it's about something else. And that something else we can call "politics" because it's about flashing one's membership in the left collective.

One of my favorite poets is Richard Wilbur. I got to know him ever so slightly because he was teaching at my college. Wilbur was never interested in making his poetry political, nor did he get much involved in the causes that were epidemic on the campus. He simply decided to be apolitical. He was viewed as quite weird as a result.

Was Wilbur a closet right winger? I doubt it, but it would not have served his career to be right wing. Best to be either left wing or keep your mouth shut in that world.

On the subject of classical art with something of a libertarian edge (including some Ayn Rand illustrations), I recommend Quent Cordair Fine Art (warning: NSFW if your workplace is offended by artistic nudity), a studio for artists who call their style Romantic Realism. Their stuff astounds me.

"inherently right wing" -- What does that mean? It's really not a good idea to be narrowly partisan if you want to talk about creating art.

The United States groups several poltical sensibilities into two major parties -- so you've got all sorts of partisans willing to ally. Perhaps it's simplistic to pretend that there are only two political views in the U.S. -- A "right" wing and a "left" wing.

There's a lot of crappy art out there. And narrow minded people produce bland and bad art. Fyi - this is not contained in to a single political group. But people who enjoy calling each other "libtards" and "repubs" won't be interested in this sort of view of the world.

But to be political in a capacious sense of the word -- there's a lot of brilliant work out there that is influenced by politics.

Bulgakov, Ralph Ellison, Frederico Garcia Lorca, Italo Calvino, ect.

Are these artists "left" wing or "right" wing in your view of the world? -- And by squeezing these artists into your binary view of the world to make a political point -- Don't you commit an act of radical misunderstanding of who and what they were, in their own time?

Ann's comments strike me as naive to the extreme. I have made it clear that my declaration that I'm a conservative - and my attack on NewAge - made me a pariah. I have been abandoned by my old working buddies, hunted down in the workplace, and - for three years - labeled as "crazy" until the proof came out that my wife did kill people. (Even my divorce lawyer didn't believe me so, though I "won" my divorce because I fought like hell, I didn't get nearly what I should've - starting with getting my money back, which was spirited away to France where American divorce courts have no jurisdiction.) Then, after it was discovered I was correct - as I know I'm correct about NewAge and everything else I talk about - everyone turned against me, again, because they're shamed by what they did to me, their role in NewAge (I've had a lot of friends re-thinking their beliefs in the last few years) and find it easier to let me go, to be ambivalent about the truth, than face the fact they aren't the people they've always thought they were.

It's like I've passed through some sort of portal, call it "The Matrix" if you want, where a great truth of our culture has been revealed - and exposed - and the only answer for those still on the other side is to shut me down before I can gain traction. I've been accused of sexual harrassment 3 times by women who discovered I didn't care what their sign is - it never sticks when the facts come out. I had one job where they pasted flyers on the walls ridiculing me because I'm a Republican - management did nothing. My blog's been torn down twice when my back was turned. I had to hide in my house on the night of the last presidential election because everyone around me knew I didn't vote for Obama - anybody else here have that kind of pressure on them?

Ann, to me, lives in a dream world of vacations and professional courtesies. I'm not dissing it, mind you, I wish it for everyone, but it's not the same world I live in. I'm a known quantity who can't go walking amongst the "enemy" (as she and Meade have been doing during these so-called "protests") without putting my life at risk.

It's easy for her to say "get a job" when I've been doing the same thing for almost 25+ years. Go tell a woodpecker to build a beaver's dam. I've been moving - for years now - running away from liberalism, and NewAge, without finding shelter anywhere.

Yesterday, I was watching Japan on the television news and noticed they turned the coverage to our nuclear power plants. I said, "Wow, that's the same thing Rush said they would do." when my roommate yelled at the top of his lungs:

RUSH LIMBAUGH IS AN IDIOT WHO DOESN'T HAVE THE SENSE OF A BOWLING BALL AND ANYONE WHO LISTENS TO HIM OR WOULD ACCEPT ANYTHING HE SAYS AS A FACT IS JUST AS DUMB AS HE IS!

My other roommate - my landlord - laughed. I went back in my room, where I stay, to avoid confrontations. (The Rush hater is the same one who threatened to call the cops on me because I told him I didn't one of those new light bulbs in my room and raised my voice when he said I'd been "brainwashed".)

Folks, if you're broke - especially broke from being ripped-off and traumatized by events beyond your comprehension - this is what you're at the mercy of. Ann and Meade can walk up to people and say "Don't do this" and nothing happens. I would've been arrested.

It's just a whole other reality.

Anybody found that bad review yet? Proof that I'm "begging" and not stating a fact - you'd rather watch me spin in the wind, because I challenge everything, than make money yourselves? Putting an effective outfit together, finding a space and getting them rehearsed, and then putting them on the road takes MONEY. I can't restart a music career with a 5 year old computer, with a cracked screen and missing keys, whether I have a blog or not. Live music is the gateway because CDs and .mp3s can be copied - recordings are just calling cards now.

I'ma stop, but, Ann, you may think you can talk authoritatively on everything, but, in some areas of life, just don't have a clue. And, again, I'm not saying that to diss you, but like the people who cynically assume I'm "selling", you just don't have the mental framework to see anything outside of your own baseless assumptions.

Shakespeare blew smoke up Tudor and Stewart backsides to keep from being jailed, which of course, allowed him to make serious dough. Michael Moore he's not.

And he's not your average schmuck peddling dreck to the masses, although he certainly sold lots of tickets. He's a freak--the best of the best. Normal political arguments don't apply. He was trying to do something else, and successfully I might add.

[ADDED: Perhaps it's because she's looking in the stacks of signs that had been taped to the walls of the Capitol. Only anti-Walkerites did that. Pro-Walker people showed up, but they took their trash out when they left.]

Honestly, this "addition" shows how out of touch you are. I work on the Square, and have repeatedly observed the protesters cleaning up trash.Of course, you don;t need to take my word for it. Read the many quotes from police and capitol officials stating that.

The truth is that very, very few Walker supporters showed up, even on the day Limbaugh bused some in. But 2000 protesters showed up in WAshburn County Saturday night> Still think this is crazy Madison? So did the Republicans, and for that, they will pay with the supreme court and several spots in the Assembly and Senate.

The Dems want to create a dependency relationship with the artistic community. Back in May of 20110, Nancy Pelosi spoke to musicians and the artistically inclined in Washington DC. Instead of telling those in attendance they should get a job, she brought quite a different message: they needn’t bother working, because the taxpayers of the United States would cover their health care. Perhaps channeling her San Francisco district, Pelosi explained that without a job they would be free to focus on their talents, passions and aspirations because they wouldn’t be “job locked."

I have been a professional musician for over thirty years, and I have to say Pelosi's remarks disgusted me.

The greatest lesson my father (also a professional musician) ever taught me was that no one owed me a living, and that I should always be prepared to take care of myself.

Honestly, this "addition" shows how out of touch you are. I work on the Square, and have repeatedly observed the protesters cleaning up trash.Of course, you don;t need to take my word for it. Read the many quotes from police and capitol officials stating that.

Honestly, this "comment" shows how out of touch you are. Read the many blog posts from the Professor stating the exact same thing you just said.

The truth is that very, very few Walker supporters showed up, even on the day Limbaugh bused some in.

Limbaugh bussed in nobody. If he had, the Professor would've noticed it. You're either a liar, or you've been lied to.

Shoemaker is right. You're full of it. If Rush wanted to astroturf your pathetic freakshow, you'd have seen huge numbers, but that's not his gig. Like him or not, the guy has serious coin, and a serious rep to look after. You think he'd piss it away fighting doofuses in Madison?

But the protesters aren't petitioning for change. They're petitioning for things not to change. It's lovely role-reversal. The lefties are the regressive curmudgeons, bitterly clinging to labor-friendly Tradition while the righties are shouting "Onward! Toward progress! Onward! To the future!"

Last week on my drive to work, I heard a promo for the Michael Medved show about how even though the federal government is running record deficits, Obama had still asked for a $100 million increase in federal funding for the Smithsonian. I guess we see now what they needed the extra money for.

I have, in a sad way, enjoyed watching Garage and FLS melt down over Madison…you guys remind me of the folks in the 1950’s and early 1960’s who opposed Desegregation. You’ve got the right anger and frothing at mouth down well…”Segregation Today Segregation Tomorrow, Segregation FOREVER” Or in this case, “Collective Bargaining Today, Collective Bargaining Tomorrow, Collective Bargaining FOREVER!” In fact, much of the Progressive mindset reminds me of that era, only now Al Sharpton and the like are “Bull” Connor, how ironic….

One area where leftists are reliably conservative is intellectual property rights....In Dickens' time, there was no copywright agreement with the United States. When he visited here, he saw everyone reading his books--for free!--and I think that explains a lot of his anti-Americanism. Leftist filmmakers have more problems with pirated DVD's in China than they ever had with Mao's famines......Shouldn't Springsteen concert tickets be distributed to each according to their need?

Just some union thugs and Madison hippies, eh. None of these recalls are even in Dane county, and they're already half way there. Why would so many Wisconsinites support a small number of union thugs and Madison hippies?

Crack -- Of course you're selling. You're selling ideas and you're as aggressive as anyone in this space at driving hits to his own blog. I wasn't being cynical. It's a statement of fact. There's nothing wrong with it.

What's that got to do with Rush bussing anyone in, or whether or not Ann and Meade would report it?

I didn't claim Limbaugh bussed anyone. I said if he had, I doubt Althouse would report it. Much like she didn't report on a lot at the rallies and who was there, and instead fed rubes like you exactly what you wanted to see and read.

I didn't claim Limbaugh bussed anyone. I said if he had, I doubt Althouse would report it. Much like she didn't report on a lot at the rallies and who was there, and instead fed rubes like you exactly what you wanted to see and read.

Now I'm confused:

I may disagree with Ann on a number of things, but I don't doubt her honesty or sincerity. If you do, then why are you here?

may disagree with Ann on a number of things, but I don't doubt her honesty or sincerity. If you do, then why are you here?

He tried the Lonewacko/ J approach (Having their own blogs where they espoused and ranted) and no one turned up, so he comes here…He hasn’t learned from Trooper York that Wilma Rubble and Christina Hendricks will bring eyeballs.

Both my parents were professional musicians. Neither ever had much patience for the "romantic" view of the musical artist. While they were certainly passionate about music and music-making, the majority of the time it was...

My bad, I was thinking of Christina’s picture on Trooper’s blog…..Every week I learn something new on the Intarwebz, like that Hendricks has been “augmented” or that there is a whole genre of “cartoons” I had never even known existed…and all just from Trooper’s blog…and that doesn’t even touch on what I’ve learned from Althouse et. al.

And they were never much into the whole "it's all subjective" thing either, Crack.

My experience is the artists who say that are used to people walking out on them. The artists can't admit they're not good, so it must be the listener's fault - based on the listener's individual tastes - and not on the lousy shit the artists are putting out there.

It's the same thing in NewAge:

You're not getting sicker because you're taking water as medicine - it's because you're not doing it right!

Just like with terrible artists, they'd rather see someone/something die than doing what's necessary.

BTW - I've got Hannity on in the background and he's adopted Charlie Sheen's "Torpedo of Truth" line for his adverts.

However, as a former muscicalperformer in my younger years, there were often many times that I had to include items in the line-up that I didn't particularly care for or that were not my personal (subjective) style or favorites. You have to play to your audience and to their tastes. That is just part of the job.

You have to play to your audience and to their tastes. That is just part of the job.

You’re a sell-out!!! You play what you like, it’s all about “authenticity!” Don’t even try talking about rent or food….AUTHENTICITY! It’s like the “non-commercial” campus station at my alma mater, they play “music” that is modulated static, sometimes the oeuvre lasts 20 minutes….who cares that it is awful dreckh, it’s authentic…it is UNCOMPROMISING…it is ART…not your Barry Manilow/Bourgeois Top Forty Cr@p with harmony, and rhythm and the like…..DBQ you have the soul of an accountant, worrying about the audience…you must worry about the MESSAGE, the PEOPLE, the ART, WOMYN, GAIA, but NEVER what the audience wants…they are a bunch of PROLES, you are the ARTISTE; you shape THEM, not vice versa.

Man you people are a buncha Squares today….It’s a sad, sad day when a Crypto Jew sees more clearly the Historical/Artistic Imperative of Our Times than you guyz. Everyone but Trooper, because I think Christina rawks!

Sorry, but no - it is your job as an artist to draw people in. This has nothing to do with being selective - I'm beyond "very selective" - but with good and bad (the only two genres of music Louis Armstrong, who wrote the book on modern American music, acknowledged). To blame the audience is to cop out on your responsibility to them.

There were often many times that I had to include items in the line-up that I didn't particularly care for or that were not my personal (subjective) style or favorites. You have to play to your audience and to their tastes. That is just part of the job.

Exactly. That's the job. If you can do it, while being true to your work, then you've mastered the form. I don't have to play shit I don't like to get an audience; I play shit they'll like that I like too. It's just a whole different way of looking at it.

A big part of it is liking the audience. When I write, I think of how much they'll enjoy a particular bit, or how one song follows another - not making them endure my "vision" as many artists do. I conform my vision to them - to make them happy - that way, I don't have to fight them.

The people don't have to give you their attention, their appreciation, or their money.

It's a very equitable arrangement.

wv: ingli. What PogoПОССУМ seems to be forgetting today. Pochemu po russki, Pogo Pogoyevitch? (Sorry, I don't know how to do Cyrillic, and my Russian classes were nearly 30 years ago, and I never got much above a C.)

If you listen to this set, you'll notice how I move from one style to another - what you may not notice (because I'm doing the job) is even the space between the songs is carefully rehearsed. Everything is counted out, as well as tempo, meter, message, what song follows what, etc. It's like a big braid of information in sound.

Of course, that is a set for that club - that audience - a Jazz crowd, or whatever, would get something different, but utilizing the same technique:

WTF, Trooper, Disney? Ok, maybe Walt Disney, but as far as modern Disney goes, one of the big problems with too much of its product is that it postively *reeks* of pomposity. But that's just my asshole, subjective opinion, I'm fully prepared to admit.

Funny, I thought conservatives were into not giving people what they want. To me, wallowing in populism is a leftist trait. Giving people what they want, without regard for the intellectual, moral and economic consequences of such indulgence, is what leads to the last few weeks in Wisconsin.

Sometimes following principles isn't pleasurable, but necessary. Sometimes the more rewarding path isn't easy, in art or life.

Everything is counted out, as well as tempo, meter, message, what song follows what, etc. It's like a big braid of information in sound.

Very nice build from one song to the next.

It is what any musician has to think about when putting together a set.

I think you can do both things......cater a bit to the audience by playing some songs that you know that they will already like while at the same time including your own style, your own take on the music, your own arrangements of the existing material..... and your own original material.

No one wants to hear you mimic someone else's songs and style and neither do you want to be a puppet: just performing other people's music like a broken kareoke machine.

As you say, it takes a different arrangement based on the audience and the club you are playing at.

I can't stand by the bar and have a beer - I gotta get out of there because the women are crazy.

They know. I let the band have 'em, partially as a form of payment, but mostly because I think it warps my outlook. If I'm doing it for girls, or money, or anything but the enjoyment of a job well done, I think I'll lose my edge. There's nothing more important to me, or enjoyable, than being "in the zone" of creativity and riding the wave it makes. Making sure that, if someone came to the last show, there will be something in the next one that will surprise them - that braid I spoke of. Once you start it going, it shouldn't stop from one song to another, one record to another, one show to another:

It's one big project that should, under normal circumstances, last a lifetime.

It's my career - not my hobby, or a gig, or jamming, or what I do while maintaining my day job - it is my job. It's my life. It's what I have to offer to my fellow man.

"Limbaugh bussed in nobody. If he had, the Professor would've noticed it. You're either a liar, or you've been lied to."

Your comment would be amusing if so many people didn't believe you and Althouse. I am looking at the capitol right now from my office window. She can't say the same. I have been there all but two days, including the day that the so-called pro-Walker rally was being held. I watched as Fox News repeatedly gathered the same 12-15 "protesters," in various configurations, with various signs, to stand behind them when they filmed. I saw this with my eyes, but you can check this yourself, I presume, by going through their video and seeing how many times on sdifferent "reports" you see the same guy with the reverse swastika sign. They were literally sitting on the curb by the Fox tent (I can tell you exactly rthe corner if you like), and when they weere ready to film, I watched as the producer (presumably) went to the "protesters" to choose who would stand up.

I saw the buses come in to the pro-Walker rally site, including the bus with literally 3 riders in it. I can't say Limbaugh paid for it, but I can say for sure that he promoted it on his show.

The comment that if it were true, Ann or Mead would have told you so is evidence that you drank the Kool-Aid. I am telling you, I am right here, watching a guy with a triangle sign walk down the road. I know the truth hurts, but I am telling it.

I remember I couldn't wait for Sunday Night to see it when they were going to show Fess Parker and Barnaby Jones at the Alamo or Fred MacMurray teaching Kurt Russell how to tie a square knot or when Herbie the Love Bug had nothing to do with Lindsey Lohan and didn't make you think of herpes.

Might want to check into this before you get smirky. One website alone- unitedwisconsin.com - has well over 150,000 unique requests to sign the Walker recall petitions when they come out. I know in my household there will be two signatures, but only one registration on that site. Also, there are several other organizations, and this weekend, there will be a meeting to organize and consolidate efforts as best as possible.

They have already gathered enough signatures to get recall votes of several Senate and Assembly Republicans.

It is what any musician has to think about when putting together a set.

Thanks. But how many bands have you seen who engage in chatter amongst themselves, tuning up, asking what they'll play next, even asking the audience, etc.? That's not a show - it's a rehearsal in front of people. That's why they fall off:

They don't think about what they're doing before they get there.

I'm like classic Mike Tyson onstage - I come in with a plan, and execute it with a ferocity no one's expecting, even if I'm doing slow songs. I can't tell you how many times I've just walked on stage and (I love this) heard "Uh-oh" from the audience, because they can see in my eyes, my stride - my presence - that something's about to happen beyond what they're expecting, what the opening group did, or what they're used to. I don't care if another band's going to follow me:

What's important in art does have something to do with the way it speaks to a community, but the artist is always at a variance with the community, and isn't merely recycling generic moralism. Dylan saw new possibilities in electric guitar that Seeger hadn't seen, which is why Dylan is still with us, and Seeger stopped growing in about 1956. Shakespeare is still ahead of us. Jesus is still ahead of us. Homer still has something to say to us. This is why they still matter.

What's important in art does have something to do with the way it speaks to a community, but the artist is always at a variance with the community, and isn't merely recycling generic moralism.

Right - you've got to be ahead of them, but not too far ahead. You can't take them places they're not ready to go, before they're ready to go there. They'll go anywhere - it's bullshit that there's music an audience won't accept - but you've got to know how to lead. And that, again, depends on thinking about them first - before your "vision" - they'll accept your vision, whatever it is, if you respect and like them before you get together.

Dylan's comeback - I can't remember what song it was - after that woman yelled "Judas!" is a perfect example:

My wife is an artist, has a blog, and refuses to even hint at anything political (she's conservative) because she's afraid that she will lose followers. Why? Because all these "artsy" people tend to be left-wing, and a lefty can not tolerate someone who disagrees with them. A conservative who is also an artist does separate their politics from their art. And part of the reason is they know there will be a backlash if they reveal their true beleifs.

Not intended as snark (because I do get the reality of that phenomenon) but rather out of sincere curiosity and an interest in digging a little deeper into certain veins people so often don't want to mine:

Let's say she did "come out." Wouldn't she gain a ton of conservative followers, enough to offset the loss of others, enough to support her blog/art? Your comment indicates she does not believe she would. Why is that? How can that be?

Also, just for the record (and maybe this belongs in a different thread--I wouldn't vouch for otherwise, myself, on account of I can't, just now, be bothered to check) **DORIS DAY** did the best version of "Buttons and Bows," back when she was a girl singer, before she became something else.

Let's say she did "come out." Wouldn't she gain a ton of conservative followers, enough to offset the loss of others, enough to support her blog/art? Your comment indicates she does not believe she would. Why is that? How can that be?

What's up with that?

I think her experience would be much like mine:

She'd find herself standing alone, with a bunch of snarling Leftists - who know who she is - doing everything in their power to tear her down in any way possible.

And then there's the whole issue of conservatives and art:

While, it's true, liberals will throw any damned thing against the wall and call it great, conservatives will throw prohibitions up - against nudity, say - which puts limits on what one can do or get funded. (Not that I've seen many conservatives willing to fund anything beyond Opera or Ballet.) There's not much discernment when it comes to the question of what makes good high or low art. As you said:

I can recognize something as art and not like it. I can also recognize something as drek and still like it.

That ability is missing amongst a whole slew of folks, on the Left and Right, and puts those of us who are serious about art in a real bind. There's no safe haven in America (as they try to make in Europe) unless you already have commercial backing, of some kind, associated with it. I can have the greatest reviews in the world, and say "invest in me" until the cows come home, but the response will always be "you're begging" until I make it on my own. Then, of course, they'll all want to jump onboard, but what in the world will I want them around for then? To look at the smiling faces of people who let me starve, and sat on the sidelines, as my youth disappeared? Fuck that, and fuck them, too. I'm offering to make them money - now - on my back.